This document explains how Cisco Secure Intrusion Detection System
(IDS) identifies and prevents web server compromise from attacks by the Nimda
worm (also known as the Concept virus). The complex technical workings of the
worm are beyond the scope of this bulletin and are well documented elsewhere.
One of the best technical descriptions of the Nimda worm can be found in
CERT®
Advisory CA-2001-26 Nimda Worm.

The Nimda worm is a hybrid worm and virus that is spreading
aggressively on the Internet. To understand Nimda and the abilities of Cisco
IDS to mitigate its spread, it is important to define these two terms:

Virus refers to malicious code that spreads through
some type of human intervention, such as when you open an e-mail, browse an
infected website, or manually execute an infected
file.

The Nimda worm is actually a hybrid that exhibits characteristics of
both a worm and a virus. Nimda infects in multiple ways, most of which require
human intervention. Cisco IDS Host Sensor blocks worm-like infection methods
that spread through vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Internet Information Server
(IIS). Cisco IDS does not block the virus-like, manual infection methods, such
as when you open an e-mail attachment, browse an infected website, or manually
execute an infected file.

Cisco IDS Host Sensor prevents Directory Traversal attacks, which
include those used by the Nimda worm. When the worm attempts to compromise a
Cisco IDS-protected web server, the attack fails and the server is not
compromised.

These Cisco IDS Host Sensor rules prevent the success of the Nimda
worm:

IIS Directory Traversal (four rules)

IIS Directory Traversal and Code Execution (four
rules)

IIS Double Hex Encoding Directory Traversal (four
rules)

Cisco IDS Host Sensor also defends against unauthorized changes to web
content, so it does not allow the worm to alter web pages in order to spread
itself to other servers.

Cisco IDS conforms with standard security best practices to protect web
servers against Nimda. These best practices dictate not to read e-mail or
browse the web from a production web server, as well as not have network shares
open on a server. Cisco IDS Host Sensor prevents the web server from being
compromised through HTTP and IIS exploits. The aforementioned best practices
ensure that the Nimda worm does not arrive on the web server by some manual
means.

Cisco IDS Network Sensor identifies web application attacks, which
include those used by the Nimda worm. The Network Sensor is able to identify
attacks and provide details about the affected or compromised hosts to isolate
the Nimda infection.

These Cisco IDS Network Sensor alarms fire:

WWW WinNT cmd.exe Access (SigID 5081)

IIS CGI Double Decode (SigID 5124)

WWW IIS Unicode Attack (SigID 5114)

IIS Dot Dot Execute Attack (SigID 3215)

IIS Dot Dot Crash Attack (SigID
3216)

Operators do not see an alarm that identifies Nimda by name. They see a
series of the alarms noted as Nimda tries different exploits to compromise the
target. The alarms identify the source address of hosts that have been
compromised and that should be isolated from the network, cleaned, and
patched.

Apply the latest updates for Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express,
Internet Explorer, and IIS available from
Microsoft.

Update your virus-scanning software with the latest patch to
mitigate the spread of the virus.

Note: You can download the latest virus patch to protect your PC from
infection. If your PC has already been infected, this virus patch allows you to
manually scan the hard drive of your PC and clean the infection from the
machine.

Deploy Cisco IDS to mitigate the threat, contain the infection, and
protect the servers.